This project seeks to use available quantitative data from published documents and other existing sources to study the actions of state governments in the area of aging plus the characteristics of those governments and their jurisdictions which might help explain those actions. Data have been gathered for all fifty states for every fifth year from 1955 to 1975 in order to capture changes in the patterns of variation among the states during the period of substantial "federalization" of old-age policy. Project objectives include: (1) to describe the variation among the states at each point in time using multiple indicators in the policy areas of income maintenance, health care, consumer protection, and social services; (2) to analyze the variation in the more enduring of these state policy efforts across the five time points; (3) to examine the patterns of interrelationship among the various policy measures at each time point for which complete data are available, in order to ascertain whether they form one or more single measures of overall "policy effort;" (4) to attempt to explain these policy variables by correlating them with other state characteristics; and (5) to examine the development of old-age policy in eight case-study states. The second year of the project will be devoted largely to multivariate data analysis and compilation of the case studies.